Let Your Hair Down
by dinabar
Summary: Sequel to What Are Friends For?, but you don't have to have read that one. Harry gets fed up of Nikki's tied up hairstyles.
1. Chapter 1

**A possible sequel to What Are Friends For? But you don't need to have read that first. Fluff and cheese alert…but I promise no shouting this time :)**

**For all the lovely people who reviewed the first bit.**

**All characters belong to the BBC, no infringement intended.**

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**Let Your Hair Down**

The shift had been subtle, almost imperceptible but tangible and real nevertheless. The atmosphere was less tense, the disagreements less vitriolic, the friendship gentler, kinder in many ways. But nothing had actually been said or indeed done. The trips to the pub after work had become slightly more frequent. The excuses to have dinner together easier to make but neither of them had stepped forward and claimed they were embarking on something new or even something exclusive.

He looked up at her from his side of the desk, she was totally engrossed in the report she was writing. Her brow furrowed in concentration, her hair all pulled back in that elaborate style she'd taken to wearing. Had everything changed for him since that night he had screamed at her that he wished she could be the mother of his children? Not really. It had not been the leap off the precipice that Harry had been expecting, more of a geriatric shuffle down an uneven slope. He looked up at her again and remembered her as she was when he first met her. All hair bands and straight forward plaits, not one of these complicated arrangements she had now and those bangs! He chuckled to himself at the memory and then mentally corrected his Americanism.

'Bangs' it was a much better word than fringe. Fringe suggested something alternative or slightly anarchic, there didn't seem much anarchic about eyebrow length hair. Bangs however was an 'in your face' kind of a word and it suited the reality perfectly. He'd been introduced to the term by the younger sister of an American girlfriend he'd had during his A levels, they were more study partners than boyfriend and girlfriend but he always remembered her little sister. The first time he had gone to the house, the sister had opened the door and before he'd even stepped onto the mat he had been greeted with.

"Hi, I'm Lexi. Check out my bangs!"

He of course had no idea what the girl was referring to or what he was supposed to be checking out and was left humiliated and embarrassed, his face growing redder by the second as he desperately tried to understand what the child was referring to until he was finally rescued by… by… he couldn't even remember her name anymore. Talk about geriatric.

"We should do something on Friday," he announced suddenly.

"Hunh?" Nikki pulled her focus away from her report and looked up.

"I said; we should do something on Friday. Neither of us are on call. We should do something fun, something different. You know let our hair down."

Nikki looked up. "What are you suggesting?"

"Oh I don't know, I just thought of it," Harry stumbled, wishing he'd spent longer thinking about his proposition before letting it blurt out of his mouth.

"Aren't you supposed to be working; not thinking?" she asked.

"Aren't you?" he countered.

"I got interrupted," she said drily.

"So what about it, something on Friday – the two of us," he looked plaintively at her and was rewarded with a smile.

"Is it a date?" she asked softly.

"I don't know," Harry admitted shyly. "Do you want it to be?"

"Mm hmm," she nodded slightly.

"So what shall we do?"

Harry thought for a while, Nikki watched as his face betrayed a range of emotions.

"I'm not sure I like the look of any of the ideas you're thinking of," she said quickly.

"How do you know? I haven't said any of them yet."

"Well I know one of them was Karaoke, because you've been making hints for ages about the The King's Head on a Friday night and I know that's their Karaoke night."

Harry nodded, it was really infuriatingly hard to surprise someone who had an uncanny knack of knowing what you were thinking just by looking at you.

"I don't want to spend all night in the car getting somewhere, and then trying to get back again, so you'd better make it somewhere close so we can have a drink," she insisted.

Harry began tapping on his keyboard, obviously searching for ideas. Nikki saved her report and started searching to.

"So tell me again, what exactly are we looking for?"

"Something fun, something we've not done before and somewhere we can let our hair down."

"And I say it has to be close enough not to have to drive," Nikki insisted.

"Oh this could be something!"

"What?"

"It would be close, we could have a drink and we've never done it before?" Harry teased.

"What?"

"We could take in a concert, the Albert Hall is practically spitting distance from your flat."

Nikki continued tapping on her keyboard.

"I don't think so…"

"Why?" cried Harry impressed that he'd had what he considered to be a clever idea.

"Friday's programme includes Mahler and Shostakovich, you'd be working out ways of stabbing yourself with the furniture within five minutes. I thought this was about switching off from death and depression for once. I'd be left trying to explain to Leo why you were a dead body in the Albert Hall, how you had killed yourself using only opera glasses and how I had got to the scene so quickly."

Harry chuckled, "Hmm does sound rather depressing. Comedy store?"

"No way, you'd spend the whole evening making rude comments and claiming you'd be funnier."

"You're right again."

They both went back to tapping on their keyboards.

"Bungee jumping in the O2 arena!" Nikki exclaimed.

"You are joking! You made that up!" Harry laughed nervously and tried to peer round her screen. He really hoped she'd made that one up.

"What about greyhound racing?" He asked keen to be off the subject of attaching your body to an elastic band.

"Dog racing?"

"Yeah, it'll be great, we've never done it before, it'll be a laugh. It says here you can get two tickets and a burger for eight quid. All the money we save we can use for betting and a cab home!"

"Greyhound racing?"

"Oh, live a little Dr Alexander, we said this was about letting our hair down."

"But Harry, you haven't the first clue about betting. I'll wipe the floor with you!"

"Ah but I know how to spot a good dog," he said tapping his nose conspiratorially.

"Bollocks," she laughed.

"So what do you say then, we start with what £50 each and see who makes the most in the evening."

"So you're making this into a competition now," she chuckled.

"We did say it had to be fun," Harry said sagely.

"I am going to wipe the floor with you!" she laughed.

"See, I knew we could think of something."


	2. Chapter 2

It was only to be expected that come Friday afternoon the bodies started stacking up.

"Oh come on Harry, cheer up," she'd called across to him, after noticing his long face as she placed the liver of her victim on the scales.

"Friday's are always quiet," he said sullenly.

"No they're not," she chuckled.

"You got anything suspicious then?" she asked Harry.

"Nope. You?"

"Not so far."

"Well we may be out of here on time after all. I'll pick you up about 6:30." Harry said as he finished his stitching.

Later he ran up the steps after pressing the buzzer outside her building. He knew she wouldn't be ready. They were only going dog racing. It wasn't as if she had to try hard. He wasn't entirely sure why she even had to come home first, she'd showered after finishing the autopsy. Most of the time he didn't even notice what she was wearing and she always looked attractive.

She opened the door to him a bottle of mascara in one hand, and obviously only half her face made up.

"Nikki Alexander," he scoffed. "You are going to the dogs!"

He chuckled to himself at his hilarious joke. Nikki glared at him and ran back into her room.

"I won't be a minute," she called.

"Good, because it'll take a while to get there,"

"I thought we agreed somewhere close," she said, popping her head around her bedroom doorway.

"No the track's in Wimbledon, they closed the one in Walthamstow years back."

"Wimbledon is hardly close," she whined.

"Ah, yes but if you want dogs…you have to go to Wimbledon."

She scowled at him again.

He put his head round her doorway and peeked in at her.

"Or Harlow."

"Harry!" she scolded. He put his head back out of her room again.

"Or Brighton," he peeked back in again.

"Harry!" she was laughing now.

"So will I do?" she asked. "Is this good enough to go to the dogs?"

Harry stepped into her bedroom and made a show of looking her up and down.

"No," he replied simply.

"NO!" she half shouted back incredulously. "You're hardly dressed up," she flicked her hand towards him as if to point out the fact he was still wearing his work trousers and had just changed his shirt.

"It's not the clothes – you look lovely," he said hastily, trying to ward off her anger. He moved to stand directly behind her, so he could look over her shoulder and into her dressing table's mirror.

"But this will not do," he indicated her hair which was still tied up behind her right ear.

Nikki caught his eye in the mirror and saw him smile at her.

"This evening was about letting our hair down," he insisted. "And this is most definitely not down."

It wasn't that he didn't like her hair done up. Of course when she was working she had to keep it tied back, he'd lost count of the number of times he'd pulled a long blonde hair out of his keyboard and he was surprised they didn't find more on the bodies. But recently the fancier styles had somehow made her look a bit prim and inaccessible. He didn't mind too much as the number of police officers and EMT's hanging around the place had dwindled but he wanted to spend the evening with Nikki; not some strait-laced version of herself she was adopting in a bid to portray maturity and self-sufficiency.

He studied the back of her head, suddenly becoming aware of her proximity, there must be clips or pegs or something keeping it in place he thought to himself. He tried hard to ignore the scent of her perfume, the way her shoulders touched his chest as she breathed in and her hips brushed against his. How hard would it be to untie her hairstyle? He'd combed and brushed the hair of many women, it was part of his job; he just had to keep in mind that Nikki was alive.

He spotted a small diamante pin head and carefully gave it a tug, a small section of hair fell down onto her shoulder. He ran his fingers through it to smooth it out. The instant he felt her soft hair run through his fingers it felt as if he'd been hit by a freight train. He swallowed and glanced up at her, startled at the force of his reaction to her. He'd only started to undress her hair.

With fingers shaking he searched and removed a second and third pin. Each time running his fingers through the section of hair that then fell down her back. He kept his eyes on the back of her head not daring to meet her gaze and expose the extent of his desire. Her right shoulder was still uncovered, he not started work on the bun yet. He brushed his fingers against her neck and was certain he heard her sigh.

They were supposed to be going greyhound racing, he told himself, he was imagining all this. He took another deep breath and looked into the mirror. He wasn't imagining this. Whereas his body had reacted to hers by becoming taut and hard, hers he noticed was softening and relaxing; her shoulders leaning further into him. Her eyes dark and unfocused.

He bent forwards and kissed the base of her neck, just on her collar bone and then began work on her bun.

"Just say the word," he whispered his voice thick with emotion. "Tell me to stop and I'll stop. We'll go to the pub, go dog racing, sit in uncomfortable silence at the cinema for a couple of hours and I'll never mention this again. Just say the word." He was smoothing the last few sections of hair, they were still slightly damp from her earlier shower and the curls and kinks making a lopsided pattern on her loose hair.

"No," she uttered.

"No?" he questioned; fearful that he had misread all the signs; that she didn't want this; that she wanted him to stop.

"No," she repeated emphatically. "I don't want you to stop."

He kissed her neck again and looked up to meet her eyes in the mirror.

"You did say tonight was to be something that we had never done before, something fun and something where we could let our hair down," she said.

"And you said it had to be close to home," Harry smiled.

"Kiss me," she said simply.

"Technically we have done that before," Harry explained. But Nikki had already spun round and reached her arms up and around his neck.

"Not like this," she smiled before capturing his lips with hers.

Harry circled his arms around her waist pulling her flush against him, and kissed her back.

The shift may have been subtle almost imperceptible but the feeling of her pressed up close to him was most definitely tangible, definitely real and one he never ever wanted to be without again.

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**And just in case it doesn't translate 'going to the dogs' is an English idiom that means you aren't taking care of yourself especially your appearance and or your morals.**

**Hopefully a bit of light relief for all of you in exam mode- good luck to you all.**


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